Murali_Mohan_das

I agree with Kula. The line is an arbitrary one drawn by finite jiva-souls for the sake of party spirit.

JN's arrogance is plain to see for all. Clearly he has some delusions of grandeur.

I don't see anything in the quote from Thakur Bhaktivinoda about buying toys for "starving" kids. You may think those kids are starving, but I can say, just from the pictures, they look a lot healthier than a lot of my children's classmates. BhaktiK Maharaj. I'm sorry if I have offended you. I have heard about your Republican, conservative viewpoints. I'm sorry if I don't share them. If I were to go to India to live in a mud hut, that would make me a poseur like JN Prabhu. I was born here. There is plenty of suffering here. Even *more* tragically, the people around me are suffering while believing that they are living the "good life". As for poverty, it's very relative isn't it? It has everything to do with how wealth is measured. I may make a comfortable salary (though I work for government and not private industry), but by the day before my next paycheck is due, I'm lucky if I still have $200 in my bank account. After paying for health care (which we almost never use), taxes, child care, auto insurance, food, rent, etc., there's almost nothing left. Who's rich and who's poor? Those who have a taste for the Holy Name are the richest of all.

Is that the Vaishnava thing to do? What is my dharma? Would going to live in India be according to my dharma? It was my karma to be born here. *Everybody* who is not self-realized is suffering, whether they are rich or poor. After a full day's work (I *do* manage to get some work done between posts on Audarya), I go home and care for my kids. That's my dharma. I try to remind my kids that this material life is fleeting, and that true happiness isn't found in material objects, but in devotion and service to the Lord and the Vaishnavas. No doubt, I am an idiot, JN-ji, but that doesn't change the fact that buying toys for those kids does more for *you* than it does for them.

Your words, not mine. I'm saying that there's no inherent *benefit* over playing with sticks, coconut shells and mud to playing with flimsy Chinese made toys. That's all I'm saying. If we want to pat ourselves on the back for getting the kids some plastic toys, I guess it's no big deal. Sorry for making such a stink (though JN's response was revelatory, I believe).

As if any of us know right from wrong? Puh-lease!!! Just a bunch of blind men describing the elephant.

Wow! It's a good thing I've been avoiding this particular thread. Even *I* don't have the stomach for all this. Gaura Hari!! Keep up the good fight, BhaktiK, Beggar, et. al.!!!!

Perhaps I'm just envious, Jahnava Nitai Prabhu, that *you* get to be the savior of those kids while I'm wrangling data all day.

No doubt 1,000 years of Mughal rule and close to 100 of British rule had nothing to do with the plight of the people there today. Haven't they suffered enough at the hands of the imperialists? If you could stop sputtering in indignation for a moment, you might realize that I never said the kids need *no* education, nor did I say they ought to work day and night. I said working is often good for people and plastic toys are often *not* good for them.

Just like speculating that soma is a mushroom, much of what scientists think they know about human development is biased speculation. Well, I *have* come across some interesting information. The scientists in whom you seem to place so much trust didn't think that women's brains were any different from men's brains until about 15 years ago. They just assumed that they were the same. Here's something I had posted on another forum: *** Transcribed by hand from "The Female Brain" (page 2) by Louann Brizendine, M.D. (neuropsychiatrist at UCSF, former faculty member at Harvard Medical School, and graduate of the Yale University School of Medicine and UC Berkeley): "Until the 1990s, researchers paid little attention to female physiology, neuroanatomy, or psychology separate from that of men. I saw this oversight firsthand during my undergraduate years in neurobiology at Berkeley in the 1970s, during my medical education at Yale, and during my training in psychiatry at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center at Harvard Medical School. While enrolled at each of these institutions, I learned little or nothing about female biological or neurological difference outside of pregnancy. When a professor presented a study about animal behavior one day at Yale, I raised my hand and asked what the research findings were for females in that study. The male professor dismissed my question, stating, 'We never use females in these studies--their menstrual cycle would just mess up the data.' The little research that was available, however, suggested that the brain differences, though subtle, were profound."

That's good for a laugh! Can you present some citations in support of that?

I see. Thanks for the clarification!!

I don't buy that crap. People follow that philosophy in the West and look what's happening. Skyrocketing rates of teen suicide, autism, depression, drug abuse--how many grammar-school kids are on speed (Ritalin) right now? That philosophy simply does not work. Sorry BhaktiK-ji, I'm too emotionally-charged over this issue. I'm trying to back away--really I am.

I brought five 30 gallon trash bags to the Goodwill to donate--they would take them!!!! They are no longer taking toy donations because of the danger of lead contamination. So many of the toys from China have proven to be lead contaminated, that they want nothing to do with them. The toys are going into the landfill.

OK, Prabhu. I'll back off. No doubt, I have a lot to learn about suffering.